As expected, Dayton, Ohio-based NCR Corp. says it has officially dropped Tidel from its list of product brands - a name drop the company has anticipated since its acquisition of Tidel Engineering from Tidel Technologies Inc. in spring 2007.
Both companies agreed then that Tidel Technologies would keep the Tidel name and brand. The transition, however, from Tidel to NCR took some time, said Brad Lozier, vice president of product management for NCR's Financial Solutions division.
"NCR did not want to make too many immediate changes, and we wanted to keep Tidel separate from NCR," he said.
That corporate vision has since changed.
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"We were overly sensitive to moving the brand to something other than Tidel," Lozier said. "The value of the Tidel brand doesn't exist internationally, and we use EasyPoint in our retail nomenclature. So taking advantage of the EasyPoint brand made sense."
NCR also has launched a new Web site to promote its EasyPoint line, which includes the EP 3330, 3600 and 3800.
Brian Pilla, NCR's director of marketing and deployment for the Financial Solutions division, says domestically, NCR will continue to leverage Tidel's brand recognition with credit unions and community banks, even as it moves under the EasyPoint name.
"On the U.S. level, we're able to market to credit unions with the EasyPoint brand because it is built on a Tidel platform."
The move ties well with NCR's overall plans for global growth, building a more NCR-centric brand and a strong commitment to self-service, NCR executives say.
Trailing the heels of its announcement to make the Teradata data warehousing a business a separate corporate entity, NCR on Oct. 1 announced plans for its new corporate strategy, which company officials have coined the "new NCR."
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In addition to a focus on ATMs and self-checkout terminals, NCR president, chairman and chief executive Bill Nuti says his company also plans to target the industries of travel, hospitality, entertainment and gaming, as well as healthcare and the public sector.
ATMs, and a fine-tuned plan
ATMs remain a central and core part of the company's business, Lozier and others are quick to point out. To that end, NCR's decision some nine months ago to outsource to Solectron the manufacturing of NCR ATMs sold in North America has helped the company focus on innovation, an identified corporate strategy for the "new NCR."
The January 2007 deal with Solectron allowed NCR to cut approximately 650 jobs at its manufacturing hub in Dundee, Scotland, and another 450 at its manufacturing facility in Waterloo, Canada. Jobs at NCR's Carrollton, Texas, facility, which NCR acquired as part of its buyout of Tidel Engineering, were realigned, and only 32 of the 72 positions there were eliminated. NCR's Sao Paulo, Brazil, plant also was spared, with only an expected 60 layoffs.
NCR executives in January said they planned to continue operating the 60,000-square-foot facility in Texas, using it instead as a center for research and development related to the Tidel/EasyPoint line of ATMs.
Last week, as NCR executives prepped for the unveiling of a so-called "new" corporate perspective, they reaffirmed their position about the Carrollton plant but would not comment about what the future holds.
"We've gone to Solectron for the North American market," Lozier said. "Regardless of whether it's a Personas ATM or Tidel machine, it's something we did to meet the needs of the North American market. And as far as the facility goes, I'd rather not discuss any decisions that relate to the facility."
